


and one day i will pass you by

by perennials



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Future Fic, KRTSK Angst Week 2018, M/M, Post-Break Up, i guess, yes they are not together but it is called krtsk angst week and therefore the tag. it is here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 10:50:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16262687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennials/pseuds/perennials
Summary: Tetsurou still dreams of him, sometimes.





	and one day i will pass you by

**Author's Note:**

> this break up fic is brought to you by: someone who has never gotten to the dating someone part of a relationship before

There is no push-pull motion to leaving someone— there is only an ocean. It is dark and murky and full of unwanted things. It tosses you about like a rag doll. One moment you are gasping for air, searching for reasons to stay, and the next you are so busy being crushed beneath the water-weight that you cannot focus on anything. One moment you are all right, and the next you are not. Mix-and-match. Alternate as one sees fit.

 

There is no push-pull motion to leaving someone. No highlighter-yellow line on the tarmac delineating ‘caring enough to try’ and ‘not giving a shit’. The only thing that exists is the ocean, and even that is not trying to hurt you. Nature does what it wants; time moves along at whatever pace it chooses.

 

The truth is, nothing is trying to hurt you. You hurt yourselves, in these childish ways. You make mistakes. You make mistakes and then you try to fix them, and sometimes it works out, sometimes there are enough band-aids to go around and enough laughter to smooth out the cracks in the stained-glass chapel. Sometimes you get a second chance.

 

Sometimes. Sometimes. Not always. Nothing is trying to hurt you. Least of all, yourself. Least of all, the beautiful boy growing smaller, smaller, smaller in the distance.

  
  


::

  
  


Tetsurou still dreams of him, sometimes.

  
  


::

  
  


At the end of the day, the leaving is no one’s fault.

 

Tetsurou’s best friend asks him what happened. He just points at the saltwater currents, says nothing. Actually, he tries to say something, but the words catch like sandpaper in his throat and his throat hurts so he lets his mouth fall shut again. His coffee sits, untouched, on the table between them. The fan whirs overhead.

 

“I don’t get it,” Bokuto says with a sigh, and means it. He prods at his chocolate cake morosely with his fork. Behind the broad shadow of his shoulders, the mustard-colored sun laughs at Tetsurou. He hates it.

 

_ I don’t get it.  _ Neither does Tetsurou. He wants to. He tried to. For months and months, he’d been squinting into the darkness just off the coast, trying to decipher the Morse code being blinked back at him from across the water. Every time  ~~ Kei ~~ Tsukishima looked at him with an indiscernible message in his eyes, every time  ~~ Kei ~~ Tsukishima skirted away from his touch. Every time he overstepped a line he hadn’t seen coming, and  ~~ Kei ~~ Tsukishima withdrew into himself like the fucking sun disappearing behind storm clouds. He’d tried.

 

They’d tried for so long. Tetsurou opens his mouth again to say something, but then Bokuto’s leaning over the tiny coffee shop table and pressing his palm to his cheek and he looks so sad. He looks so sad. Bokuto has always been more finely attuned to people’s emotions than others. Today, Tetsurou can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

 

“I’m sorry,” Bokuto mumbles, half-choked up and blue with residual heartache.

 

The coffee shop is full of ghosts this afternoon. Tetsurou can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

 

He wants to ask Bokuto,  _ what for,  _ but then he catches sight of his reflection in the glass outside. His heart falls even further than it’d fallen before, which puts it just about at the center of the earth, if he’s not wrong. Soon enough, it’ll be making its way to the other side of the world, out of the planet’s atmosphere, into outer space. He wonders if he can follow it out there.

 

The boy in the glass is wearing an expression like a knife twisted into the heart of a birthday cake. His eyes are red, dark, sleepless circles outlined like shadows beneath them. Tetsurou swallows; the boy does so too. It looks like it hurts. No surprise there.

 

“Don’t be.” He covers Bokuto’s hand with his own. It’s the least he can do, under the weight of the mustard-yellow sun and all its dead-end dark alley energy. It’s the least he can do.

  
  


::

  
  


Picture this: he’s at a beach with the love of his life, and it’s sunny. It’s sunny, it’s bright out, children scrawling pictures in the sand with grubby fingers and people wading through the water in the background. Beneath all that, there is a sound like a landslide. The love of his life is concerned. Tetsurou says  _ don’t mind it,  _ and tugs him by the hand into the shallows.

 

Picture this: he’s at a beach. It’s sunny. It’s a good day, a happy day, the kind of day you put up in a gilded metal frame and sharpie the date over so you won’t forget about it. There’s a sound like a landslide. The love of his life begins to fret, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. ~~Kei~~ says  _ I don’t want to play anymore.  _ But Tetsurou isn’t listening.

 

Picture this: no one is at the beach. The landslide became a tsunami and the tsunami swept everything away, and Tetsurou was too busy trying to keep the light in his field of vision to realize that. It’s still sunny. It’s still sunny.

 

The leaving is no one’s fault— the flood waters had simply been too strong. Tetsurou’s always been good at swimming, but he’d never thought of how to stay afloat with his arms and his tongue all tied up.  ~~ Kei  ~~ Tsukishima had done what he’d thought was best. If that involved  _ I think we need some time away from each other  _ and  _ I’m sorry,  _ well, Tetsurou is in no position to criticize. They both let the water seep this far in. They both left the front door unlocked.

  
  


::

  
  


Tetsurou leaves his front door unlocked. Not the physical one, he means, although he forgets to lock that frequently enough, too. He means the metaphorical one, the one made of sinew and tendons and heartache. He leaves his heart unlocked. It’s a terrible choice.

 

“You need to,” Kenma begins, curled up against Tetsurou’s side on his ratty old sofa. “Move—”

 

“—Out of the way? Sure, I can do that easy.”

 

“I meant move  _ on. _ ”

 

“Oh.” Tetsurou stops jiggling his foot for long enough to drape himself over Kenma’s head, blocking his field of vision. Kenma makes a small noise of irritation like cats do, twisting to see his PSP’s screen better.

 

“Oh,” Tetsurou says again. “I don’t think I can do that.”

 

“Kuro.” Kenma gives him a look. The look, to be precise, the one that means he’s seen through Tetsurou’s pompadour and bullshit and knows what he’s hiding underneath. It’s gone just as fast as it had appeared; Kenma returns to his device, tapping away at the controls with a special brand of fluidity and ease reserved for him only.

 

Just like that, the ocean is back. It doesn’t bother knocking before it comes in anymore, just seeps in through the cracks under the door and rises up through Tetsurou’s rag doll body until he’s a hundred percent water, zero percent human. Until he’s nothing more than an image superimposed onto the faded red upholstery, a small wisp of a boy leaning against empty space beside him. Zero percent human is good. Zero percent human means he doesn’t have to think.

 

“I know,” Not-Tetsurou replies, not quite tired but not quite resolute either. Mostly, he’s empty. Mostly, he’s just not here. “I know.”

  
  


::

  
  


Tetsurou still dreams of him, sometimes.

  
  


::

  
  


_ THIS TOO SHALL PASS _

 

—Reads the neon signboard outside some shady bar or another on the outskirts of the city. Tetsurou squints at it through the damp gloom of night for half a minute, trying to get the concept of passing to align itself with his understanding of what it means to not want to shove your head in a blender and then turn the power up to max. In his periphery, someone, probably drunk, stumbles across the street and then disappears under a flap of cloth in the doorway. Tetsurou squints harder.

 

Tokyo has never felt lonelier.

 

Which is a funny thought, really, because this was a home long before  ~~ Kei  ~~ Tsukishima walked into it with his glossy white headphones and his delicate hands and his sharp/soft/sweet laughter. Tetsurou grew up in this city, goddamnit. There should be more to this than a beautiful boy. There should be more to life than a beautiful boy.

 

But somewhere along the way, he’d lost track of where Tetsurou began and Tsukishima Kei ended. For better or worse, Tetsurou had once thought whimsically, plucking his toothbrush out of the shared plastic cup in the bathroom, muffled yawning drifting out of the bedroom behind him. For worse, he thinks now. The streetlights blink awake. It’s late.

 

He kicks at a crumpled aluminum can on the floor. It hits the wall with a sharp clang, falls flat like a corpse against its side. Nothing feels real yet, still. Hundred percent water, zero percent human. Hundred percent water, zero percent pain.

 

Actually, he’s kidding. He’s always kidding, he’s Kuroo fucking Tetsurou, he doesn’t speak the language of truth.  ~~ Kei  ~~ Tsukishima knows that best. Tsukishima knew that best.

 

The neon signboard fizzes like a soda that’s been left out for too long. It goes dark. Tetsurou keeps walking, one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other. The cyclical motion keeps his heart from forgetting to beat. The sting of night air against his cheeks keeps him from feeling too comfortable in his own skin. Zero percent human; zero percent everything.

  
  


::

  
  


There is a hole in his chest, which is a metaphor for the hole in his life. The hole in his life is a metaphor for wanting to shove his head in a blender and then turn the power up to max.

 

There is a hole in his chest, so Tetsurou gets on the train early one morning and lets it take him out of the city. The world flashes past him in brushstrokes of watercolor, soft and watery and a little wet at the edges, like the eyes of someone who’s just cried their lungs right out of their rib cage. Like the heart of a boy who’s just had acupuncture performed on him by a complete amateur. That’s it, Tetsurou thinks, leaning his head against the window behind him. Heartbreak is like acupuncture. You get through it, you get better. You think you get better. For the first few minutes, you’re numb.

 

When he’s far enough away from Tokyo that reality begins to feel like a motion-blur, Tetsurou gets off. He’s got no idea where the fuck he is or where he’s going, but the air feels lighter out here. His head feels cleaner. Like this, he’s maybe ninety-nine percent water, one percent human. Closer to Tetsurou than the boy in the mirror weeks ago. He wanders through town, pausing to stare into dainty little storefronts and occasionally picking up something for— Kenma, Bokuto, Yaku, himself. Eventually, his feet carry him into a small cafe.

 

The sun’s out again; it’s the height of summer, youth fizzing like champagne bubbles all around him. The sky is blue, his skin is warm. The memory of hammering heartbeats and hands-almost-touching-lips-almost-brushing is miles and miles away. He pushes the door open, hears the clink of a bell, looks around the interior. There are no ghosts here, today.

  
  


::

  
  


“I think we need some time away from each other. It’s just— it’s not working out, I mean, you can tell, Kuroo, I know you can. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe we both see too much.

 

“Go take a break, take a trip, take a breather away from me. I think it’ll— it’ll be good for you. I really think so. Find something else. Someone else.

 

“I’m sorry.”

  
  


::

  
  


Tetsurou dreams.

  
  


::

  
  


There is no push-pull motion to leaving, but maybe for them there was a pull. Maybe for them, there was a push. Maybe they could have done things better. If they’d talked more, if they’d left more doors unlocked, if they’d given each other enough space to drift apart instead of trying to keep everything trapped inside the pressure cooker of their knotted, tangled hearts—

 

He suspects the metaphorical door will always be unlocked, but he’s stopped hoping.

 

Anyway—

 

Tetsurou takes that thought and puts it away. The cafe is worn and well-loved, adorned in shades of deep brown and duck egg blue. Seats are scattered throughout; plush leather armchairs, high chairs skirting a narrow table, booths tucked into a corner of the room. There are no ghosts here, today.

 

Instead, he orders himself a coffee and takes it back to one of the pleasantly oversized armchairs. He blows on the hot surface, takes a sip. It tastes bitter, he forgot to put in enough sugar, he forgot to take care of himself properly again (it’s a small thing, he knows, and yet Bokuto will care all the same and Akaashi will glance over at Tetsurou and touch his shoulder so gently he will almost feel as broken as he never looks on the outside). The sun is yellow like a child’s crayon drawing outside, fingerprints in the sand, saltwater currents eddying around his feet. His skin is warm.

 

His coffee tastes bitter, but at least it tastes like  _ something,  _ so that’s a start. That’s a start.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nikiforcvs) or [tumblr](http://corpsentry.tumblr.com/)
> 
> thanks lai (@ kurotsukk on twitter) for hosting this cool event. i've been wanting to write a break up fic since like july but this finally gave me the last push i needed to push out this absolute piece of bullshit. but MAN do i love writing bullshit. shit's fun! talk to me about anything. idk if i'll tackle the rest of the prompts but we'll see. still a bit of a level work left, bit of project work, bit of hell, but hey i'm mostly free now. a lot more free  
> as always, thank you for reading. all kudos, comments, and bookmarks are appreciated from the bottom of my cold dead heart. i will love u. from afar. like a......peanut butter popsicle
> 
> have a good one


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